Will:
In analyzing PR(H [“Pharaoh”] in the received alphabetical text on the
assumption that this Biblical Egyptian name was originally written down in
Akkadian cuneiform, let’s examine how Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin come
out in the Akkadian cuneiform of the Amarna Letters. You will quickly see
that in Akkadian cuneiform, Egyptian ayin cannot be distinguished from
Egyptian aleph.
As I noted previously, Amarna Letter EA 29 features mAat being spelled as
mu-u, where the same Akkadian vowel U is used for both Egyptian aleph and
Egyptian ayin.
But now let’s see how Akkadian cuneiform A can also represent both
Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin. In Amarna Letter EA 1: 2 written by
Amenhotep
III himself, mAat is written, as you point out, as mu-a. To me, that means
that the Akkadian vowel A can stand for Egyptian ayin, although you oddly
opt for seeing no ayin whatsoever being written down by Amenhotep III.
Without getting bogged down as to that one example, however, it is easy to
confirm that Egyptian ayin could be represented by the Akkadian vowel A. That
is the case in the Egyptian name ap-pi-xa in four different Amarna Letters,
including EA 105: 35, and the Egyptian name xa-ip in four different Amarna
Letters, including EA 107: 16, where the Akkadian cuneiform vowel A is used
for Egyptian ayin.
But the Akkadian cuneiform vowel A can also be used for Egyptian aleph!
For example, in both the Amarna Letters and the Patriarchal narratives, the
most frequent beginning of an Egyptian name is pA. The Egyptian name
pa-xa-na-te in four different Amarna Letters, including EA 60: 10, spells the
Egyptian aleph with an A. The Egyptian name pi-wu-ri features four different
spellings of pA, but in three separate Amarna Letters, including EA 287:
45 from IR-Heba of Jerusalem [whose scribe may have been the scribe who,
shortly after leaving Jerusalem, was commissioned by the tent-dwelling Hebrews
to write down the Patriarchal narratives in Akkadian cuneiform], the second
letter in pA is spelled with the Akkadian vowel A.
So when PR(H in Genesis is setting forth an Egyptian name, the Hebrew
alphabetical ayin/( that one sees in the received text could just as easily
have been originally intended to be a Hebrew alphabetical aleph/). Why?
Because that name was first written down in the Late Bronze Age, when the only
way to write down a sophisticated composition like the Patriarchal
narratives was by means of Akkadian cuneiform. The Amarna Letters attest
that
sometimes the Akkadian vowel U was used to render both Egyptian aleph and
Egyptian ayin, and sometimes the Akkadian vowel A was used to render both
Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin. In fact, on a more general level, Akkadian
cuneiform generally was unable to differentiate among the various gutturals.
That applies in spades to ayin vs. aleph.
As to PR(H in particular, we note that Akkadian cuneiform heth could
render, among other letters, alphabetical Hebrew ayin/( or alphabetical Hebrew
heth/X, and that the Akkadian vowel A was sometimes used to render both
Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin. PR(H in the received text started out in
Akkadian cuneiform as something like PR – RI – A – XI. Those four Akkadian
cuneiform signs could mean [among other possibilities] either (i) PR(H [per
the received text], or (ii) P R )X, with the latter being pA ra Ax : pA ra
a-khe : “Devoted to The Ra”, which compares nicely with Akhe-n-Aten : “
Devoted to Aten”.
If we reverse engineer the received alphabetical text as to the Biblical
Egyptian name PR(H and determine what the original Akkadian cuneiform signs
were, we then see an e-x-a-c-t letter-for-letter match of the original
cuneiform version of PR(H to P R )X : pA ra Ax : pA ra a-khe : “Devoted to
The Ra”. Will, it’s an e-x-a-c-t match of a-l-l the letters. It’s not
merely close, it’s e-x-a-c-t .
Surely you would agree that if the Patriarchal narratives were not
originally written down in the Bronze Age using Akkadian cuneiform, they can’t
be
old and accurate as to an historical Patriarchal Age. To see then if the
Patriarchal narratives are or are not truly ancient and accurate, simply
reverse engineer the Egyptian names in the received text to determine how they
would have originally been recorded in Akkadian cuneiform. Then the
gorgeous result is e-x-a-c-t letter-for-letter matches to Late Amarna
nomenclature that in each case fit the storyline perfectly. The greatest
wordsmith
of all time created these Biblical Egyptian names. But we cannot appreciate
them unless we reverse engineer the alphabetical Hebrew letters in the
received text to determine the Akkadian cuneiform originals, and then ask what
Egyptian names could result from such Akkadian cuneiform originals. For
example, the name of Joseph’s Egyptian priestly father-in-law, once it is
recognized that the final intended letter was heth, not ayin, is: pA wAt
-Y- pA rx, referencing such priest’s devotion to Akhenaten as allegedly
being “the only one/pA who knows/rx the distant/pA wAt [God]”. Only
Akhenaten ever made such a daunting theological claim. And Akhenaten himself
is
fittingly referred to as P R )X : pA ra Ax : pA ra a-khe : “Devoted to The Ra”
, which exemplifies Late Amarna theology perfectly.
The true antiquity and historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives
come shining through when we reverse engineer the alphabetical Hebrew
letters in these Biblical Egyptian names to determine the Akkadian cuneiform
original signs, and then ask what Egyptian names could result from those
original Akkadian cuneiform signs. We find that, unlike all previous attempts
to
explain these Biblical Egyptian names, we don’t have to stretch a single
letter! Rather, we merely need to recognize that Akkadian cuneiform
writing, such as in the original written version of the Patriarchal
narratives,
usually did not distinguish one guttural from another.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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